


The Body Eclectic

by SpaceJackalope



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Rated M for sex + swearing + brainweirds, Romance, also sex which may or may not be described as "radical", and self-love, and the paths to them, but it's mostly friendship, there's some discussion of scars, this is a happy fic with some serious themes and i had a lot of Feelings writing it, trans julia, trans kravitz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:00:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9680798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceJackalope/pseuds/SpaceJackalope
Summary: In which Kravitz has many feelings about being dead, having a body, and liking people and things.





	

**Author's Note:**

> More trans content 2k17 because I'm genderqueer!  
> Too much discussion of plants because I love plants!  
> Possibly soon to be a bit canon-noncompliant because that Keats theory is messing with me! Griffin please I trust you but please let my boi be okay please. Please?
> 
> I've noticed the distinction between M and E is a bit different in every fandom, and I'm not sure where TAZ is falling just yet! Let me know if you think this could do with a bump up. :)

Kravitz was dead, to begin with. He went easily and willingly: meant he could stop vomiting blood in between fever dreams. He walked himself to the Astral Plane. He found it was pretty easy, really: just step out of his body and oh-hey-ok-there-we-go through the, like, neighboring wall between the Astral Plane and his own. He’d noticed the wall before—caught glimpses of it every time he fell down a staircase or played for a funeral. It’d been increasingly evident while he was sick. Like gradually learning to associate a soft, usually-overlooked tink-think sound with a next-door neighbor putting the lid on their kettle. He took maybe five minutes to ghost around his bathroom, with barely a backwards glance at his old body—slumped bloodily, hollowly, gratefully, against the bathtub. Ok, if he just twisted—his feelings, not his body, all he was now was a bundle of feels—and there he was. The wall felt _mug-like_ , which isn’t at all the same thing as feeling _muggy_. Something mug-like is real, smooth but not featureless, dependable but not indestructible. It feels like home. And it is entirely accommodating to anyone feeling cold-sad-pained-bored-thirsty-fidgety—at a loss, shall we say.

The Astral Plane was mug-like and grassy _and also_ it was a library _and also_ had fantastic acoustics but no ceiling, just lovely blue sky. It smelled faintly like sun-warmed earth.

He could no longer feel the wall of his 30-year home.

The Raven Queen was there, all of a _don’t_ -jump-be-cool-she’s-a- _goddess_ -she’s- _my-_ goddess sudden. She gave him a steadying hug of comfort—of lasagna? cellos? feathers!—and a considering look. “Glad to have you here at long last, Kravitz. Have you found your peace, my child?”  

He blinked, but he had no eyelids now, not as a bundle of feels and (oh that’s new) starlight. “Well,” he said, but he had no mouth or tongue or throat or vocal cords or lungs, “I only just got here.” Later he wouldn’t remember her response, but he was fairly sure he ended up on A List. Certainly she came to him again after he’d spent what felt like an awfully long while enjoying himself.

“Kravitz,” she said. “You’re Restless.”

He, once again, would have blinked if he’d had eyelids. This time he didn’t notice the lack, only felt the feel of being surprised and hesitant and knowing she could see all of that. “Was that a _capital_ R? And no, I don’t think so. I’m having quite a nice time really. I get to see some friends and my old music theory teacher. I’ve got a garden! I’ve got all sorts of instruments, and all sorts of books, and a sort of really hard puzzle-box. All my dead pets are here, and I know everyone else I’ve ever loved will be here before I know it. What more could I want? It’s like some sort of vacation, only I live here.”

Her patience should have given him pause, but it did not. He was very young, then. “Sound-spinner, rose-grower, cat-cuddler. You spend all your time feeling like you are passing the time until something happens. You are calm and peaceful, but no more so than when you lived. Souls who have found their nourishment in death do not feel like they’re on a vacation that’s stretching on too long. They are fulfilled. You, sweetness, hunger.” She shook her feathery head, making her veil twinkle urgently at Kravitz. “You know you do.” A wry smile. “Only restless souls try to lie to me. Shh, that’s not a criticism.” She tilted her head and shifted her pose in the grass, stretching her talons. “Now, you’re not suffering either; you didn’t catch hell. You’re just not resting. Do you know why?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t.” He waited.

She laughed at him. “That was very polite. I don’t have the answer. There’s no correct answer, nor a wrong one. It’s just a matter of what I can do for you. You’re not the only restless soul. Usually someone restless needs to take care of unfinished business, and then find their stillness. My most recently retired reaper just needed something to occupy her thoughts while she waited for her wife, and then she found death easy. But you’re acting perplexed now, so I think you just need something to do. You were like that in life too, I think. Never happy without a dozen projects.” And there came such a rush of interest and excitement when she said that, that Kravitz was almost ashamed of himself.

“I—I could _try_ to rest, your majesty.” She laughed again, to his relief. “Oh, please! What did you have in mind?”

 

~***~

 

Kravitz was the Queen’s new grim reaper, her new bounty hunter. His goddess called him a psychopomp as well, but spelling had never been his strong suit. Her other suggestion had been that he join the Raven Queen’s entourage, for talking to other deities and making appearances in the mortal planes. He’d considered it, for _sure_. If he’d been her personal music director/conductor, as she asked, he’d have reached a level he’d never have imagined he could dream of! But… _but_. Events vs adventures. Finesse vs experimentation. Glory vs autonomy.

“I spent my whole life feeling—not trapped. Enclosed,” he had confessed, in a single rush of sentiment. “I could not bear it if you offered me the chance to choose my plane, my form, my solutions to problems—without sacrificing my music or garden, like you would in some sick fairytale!—and I chose my _career_ again. I was a musician, y’know, even when I was also a dishwasher. It was only…expectation that made me drive myself into the ground. I’d have been happier doing lots of things well than a few things brilliantly.”

She had touched his soul gently. “I hope you will still play for me one day? No, really. Oh, Kravitz!” she cried, growing distressed. “My dear sound-weaver, you were the best harpist living in your time, do you know that?” He did not, in fact, know that. “And everything else you played—you played _beautifully_.”

 

~***~

 

Kravitz fucking _loves_ being dead now. If he thinks about that too carefully, he supposes he oughtn’t—but did normal people follow the Raven Queen in life? What a fruitless question. Why be normal when you can be happy? He’s been to places he never dreamed of, put an end to evils, watched the world continue to spin.

He drags necromancers and other cheaters to his queen by their collars. He leads the lost, reluctant, and frightened by their hands. The first time he found that his mark was a child, he experimented and found a way to look like a person, so as not to frighten her. It worked, and so he shrugged and accepted that a flesh-body was a useful tool. He puts it on to comfort people, or to persuade them. He tries on metal, sand, water, stone, dirt, leaves, fire. Once he is a swarm of lightning bugs, and another time he is a field of tiger lilies. Often, he is a skeleton and walks without pretense as Death. Sometimes, only very rarely, he wears skin.

 

~***~

 

There is a soul in the Astral Plane who grows the best peonies Kravitz has ever seen, and her name is Julia Burnsides. The first thing she ever said to Kravitz was “Oh holy fuck, you better think fast if you want to keep all your bones pretty.” This while marching her determined 6’0” ghost frame across a bombed-out street in Raven’s Roost so she could smack Kravitz’s exposed cheekbone with all the power her ghost fist could muster. Which didn’t happen very often. People usually see Skary Skeleton Man Gonna Drag My Ass to *xXGoth*GoddessXx* and respond with…oh, magic, arguing, running. But, ok, a buff ex-revolutionary sculptor/welder just came at him and knocked him over. He stumbled backwards into a partial wall and fell on his (now flesh, for shock absorption) ass. It was pretty amazing.

He may, possibly, have babbled something about being sorry she felt that way since it meant she couldn't teach him how to get that kind of leverage.

Kravitz may, possibly, lack a sense of self-preservation. But not so much so that he didn’t think to leave that part out of his report to the Raven Queen.

He and Julia are friends now. She isn’t in a shell-shocked rage at the concept of death anymore.

When Kravitz is home, he does not always wear a body. He doesn’t think about it much, usually hanging onto whatever he was rockin’ in the mortal planes until he has a reason to change. Even a patch of starlight can laze by bourbon roses to write a new song on a banjo. His friends are mostly the same. Some go with a more body-shaped bit of light, and others went for a loose cloud. Plenty of people wear an edited version of the bodies they’d lived with. Julia almost always wears every bit of her old skin. All her freckles and angles. She looks beautiful, and deeply content.

 

~***~

 

“Julia,” he says, and she turns to him. She’s working on a sculpture, turning stone into rain pouring over the umbrella of a crouching figure. There’s fabric now, water, and skin—never mind that it’s also stone. Julia has been taking a break, her chisel in her leather apron, goggles on her forehead, using a pocketknife to slice a perfect, juicy, plum.

“Heya, Krav! How’s reaping?”

He breathes deeply—he can do that, he’s got lungs at the moment, and a nose. “I saw Magnus.” She falters, stares, folds the pocketknife deliberately and puts it in her pocket—skirt pocket, not apron. She swallows slowly.

“Oh. Ok. He alive?”

Kravitz nods, feeling guilty. “He’s fine.”

She nods back, toying with her plum pit. Her face contorts, and she sits down heavily on the moss. “Is he—oh fuck, oh fuck, _oh_.” She drops the pit without seeming to notice; clutches at the sides of her ribcage.

He slides down to sit beside her, and wraps an arm around her. “He asked me to tell you he loves you.” She tilts her head back, rolls it onto his shoulder, breathes slow and deep.

“Thanks.” She steadies her voice. “Thank you, Kravitz.” He rubs her back. “Did he look well?”

“Oh—oh, I thought he did.”

“What’s he doing these days?”

He doesn’t shrug, so that he won’t jostle her. “Adventuring, I suppose.”

She considers. “Did he know your mark, or was he just…there?” Shit. He flinched. Her eyes fly open. “Krav. Love, what did you do?”

“Nothing! No, stop looking at me like that, everything’s fine! I was investigating half a dozen people, and Magnus was one of them, but I…I…didn’t have anyone to bring back. He’s alive, didn’t do anything wrong. Shh,” he adds, stroking her hair. “Shh, he’s fine.” She’s angry, and he’s frightened. He doesn’t want to hurt her, but he can’t help it now.

“You knew.” A whisper. “You knew before you went—and you didn’t warn me?”

No. Of course he didn’t. “Would—would you have wanted me to? It’d have meant leaving you to decide whether to hope he’d live or hope he’d die, or…”

She pulls away, and laughs awkwardly. “Oh honey. Haven’t you ever waited for someone? I hope both things, every time I think of him. It—I dunno. It’s fine. I just wish you’d given me warning, so I could’ve. Not felt all my feels in the span of a few seconds, y’know?” She tilts her head. “Was it different for you? When you were waiting?”

“I—I didn’t wait. For anyone. My family didn’t—doesn’t—want to see me. Most of my friends outlived me by _decades_. I was glad to see them, but. Well. No, I never did that.” She shifts so that she can wrap her arms around his shoulders and squeeze, which reminds him, with a start, that he has shoulders today.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “That you didn’t have anyone like that.”

He searches her face. “It. Doesn’t sound very pleasant. The waiting.”

“It’s sort of beautiful though. Like—like that song you’ve been working on. It claws at my heart, but only because it’s so full of love I can’t stand it.” And Kravitz understands. Even if the song is about sea monsters. _Not_ like a hentai thing. Just, like, the entire concept of sea monsters.

“Can you tell me anything else? Is his hair graying? Is he dating anyone, could you tell?”

“His hair was mostly under a helmet. He didn’t _say_ he was. He was with two friends, but I think…just friends.”

“Well, I hope he’s getting hugged enough, at minimum. He’s very _tactile_ , my Mango.” She pushes a hand through her shortish hair and diverts a rising giggle out through her nose. “Which friends?”

“Merle Highchurch and, I think, Taako Taaco.”

She looks sharply, but fondly, at him. “Krav. That pause was not convincingly casual _at all_. How cute was this Gyro dude?”

He feels his cheeks burn. “Taako, not Gyro!” She smirks, and he does _not_ pout, because he is an adult and a professional goth. “He was—oh he was _interesting_. And he flirted with me,” read: caressed him with manifested tentacles, “and it was really nice,” read: incredibly preoccupying. He forces the dimples off his own face and cleared his throat. “D’you know him, then?”

“Hmm? Oh no, neither of them.” She shrugs. “He makes friends easily. They could’ve known each other for ten years or ten minutes, you wouldn’t have known the difference.” She smiles at her toes.

Kravitz crosses his legs and leans his head against her shoulder. “Tell me a story, Julia.” She laughs. “Tell me how you met him.”

She fidgets with the stitching on her work apron. “Well, we went to school together, but we had different friends for quite a while—Raven’s Roost was big enough that kids knew a lot of other people, but not everyone. He was really quiet when we were little, and I was outgoing and overlooked him. Then he got a bit bolder, but he was athletic and I was one of the weird art kids. The first memory I have of really _noticing_ Mags is when I was about 15 or 16. Close to my birthday, not sure which side.  Anyway, I’d been experimenting with wearing skirts and makeup and stuff, and hadn’t worked my way up to trying it at school. But I was walking the dog in a skirt and lipstick—and, like, a sweater, shut your smart mouth—and then I saw Magnus on the sidewalk and thought, ‘Oh shit.’ So I pretended I was just really focused on my Fantasy Walkman, but then he crossed the street to pet the dog. I kept thinking he was just trying to be nice to me—or maybe leading up to being mean to me. But he was just honestly really excited about how pretty Buttercup was? And he was just so cute and nice and it was so _easy_ to walk with him to grab a soda and talk about Daft Monk, so. We were friends.” She grins, and her eyelashes stir almost shyly. “Didn’t take all that long to start being the kind of friends who kiss, though.” She sighs happily. “It was like I’d never noticed I had lips before.”

 

~***~

 

 And before long, Now is a morning when Julia comes to visit Kravitz. “What’s going on with you, then?” She’s wearing a flowy green dress and a badly-hidden smile.

“Oh, not much. Detected a lich, waiting for some info I requested so I can bust ‘em reaper man stylez.” He’s 99% sure he’s succeeding at sounding Super Casual.

She nods, laughs. “Cute lich, then?”

He feels horrified. “Do those even _exist_?”

A dramatic shrug. “You’re the expert, not me!” She wills an armchair across from his own and sits. “So there’s no reason you’ve been playing romantic music ever since you got back?”

Oh fuck has he really? “I think I went on a date? I didn’t mean it to be, but then it _was_ and I really want to have another and please kill me he’s too cute.” Julia is laughing so hard it’s a wonder she can breathe—except she doesn’t even need to, not now. She does manage it eventually, eyes sparkling conspiratorially.

“Was it that Burrito babe?”

“Taako. And yes.”

 She folds her arms behind her head. “Spillllll!”

“He—he said my hands are clammy.” This thought won’t leave the front of his mind. Not only the words, but the memory of Taako’s warm soft scarred long-fingered hands, covering his own, his fingers gently nudging. Taako’s laughing flippancy, twined with restrained hope, when he encouraged Kravitz (so calmly!) to, like, make advances. His smiles throughout. The fact that he fucking swooned when his date turned into a skeletal avenger of the tides of time. His absolutely badass bowl. “Julia it’s so bad _help me_!”

“Clammy hands? Oh, that’s not so bad…”

He’d already lost track of the conversation, though. “What? No, my crush! I’ve got it really really bad.” He trails off, looks as worried as a skull can. “I…haven’t dated in a really long time.”

He was going to leave it there, as explanation enough, but she leans forward smoothly, pats his boney knee. “What’s got you worried, then?”

And ok, then. Ok. Julia understands Kravitz’s mindset maybe better than anyone else he knows right now. And maybe it’s because he’s restless and she’s a newlydead, or maybe it’s shared queerness, or shared artistic temperaments, but she gets his wanderlust. The Raven Queen sees it—or choses to see it—as purely boredom. Julia figured it quickly for loneliness and disillusionment as well. Or maybe it’s just that he’s got body issues and she’ll know how to build a bivouac against them. So ok.

“I—I haven’t been really conscious of having a body in a long time. But then he touched me, like casually, and he’s so sexy, and. I forgot what kissing felt like—not just the lips, but feeling someone breathing on my cheek and holding me. I…I don’t think anyone living’s touched me since—I guess since you punched me that time? But, no, you were already dead, just in denial.” She snorts, shrugs— _truuuu_ —and he comes out of his own head a little, refocuses. “Julia, I don’t remember what my body looked like. When I was alive, I mean.” Her forehead puckers. “All I remember—” he stops, tries to force a laugh, chokes instead. “Just the scars.” She’s gripping his hand reassuringly now, ignoring the fact that it’s bone. “I don’t know whether I’ve still got those. When I wear my skin.” He wishes desperately for a throat to swallow with, like how an old boyfriend used to crave a cigarette when _he_ felt overwhelmed. “I…I was thinking about what it would be like, if someone else saw more than my hands and, like, neck and face. And I was thinking about how _I_ would feel if I was all Hotboy McPerfectbody, and I kinda think...I think I _want_ him to see my scars and shit, and I. I have a lot of feelings, Jules.”

She shrugs, with just one shoulder. “Taako will love your body—whatever it looks like.”

He laughs, a bit hysterically. “Simple as that, huh? Power of love?” He is rewarded with a fierce snort.

“Of course not. I mean maybe, but. Pump the brakes, kiddo, it’s been one date. No, no. He’s seen you already, pretty much. And he likes what he’s seen—did you wear skin on your date?’

“Oh, yeah, of course. We were in public. Part of the time.” He considers. “He liked my bones, too,” he adds, shyly.

And up go her eyebrows. “Well, there you go! He’s attracted to you. And he’s a good person.”

True, but—“Evidence? I mean I know, but how did you?”

She smiles sunnily. “He’s Magnus’s friend, and I trust Magnus. QED, I trust Taako with your heart.” And didn’t that just leave stomach butterflies in the dust?

 

~***~

 

So then there’s this time when Kravitz is alone before a second? first? date with Taako and can’t stand it anymore. So he wills up a mirror and—looks. He almost cries. He certainly bites his lip so hard it bleeds, then heals over. It’s—well, it’s definitely a face he remembers. He’d simply forgotten that it was his own, is all. He touches himself, unbraiding his hair and running his hands through it, tracing his own features. Slips his clothes off—how did he forget being tattooed? Several small tattoos across his body, gold and white with bits of green, a fucking killer contrast with his dark skin. He traces an ivy vine on his wrist and bursts into tears as his fingers hit a different texture. His scars are still there.

 

~***~

 

Taako kisses him at the end of the date, holds him close and slides sweet warmth over Kravitz’s lips, cheek, jaw. “You’re so fucking _good_ like this,” he murmurs.

Kravitz has been cupping Taako’s skull lightly in his hands, tangling his fingers in his hair. “Like how?” Barely more than a breath.

Taako noses Kravitz gently. “Relaxed. You let your hair down. Literally. Shit, you look so good, my dude. Like Fabio level up in here, if Fabio were actually, like. Pretty. You’re _way_ prettier than him, don’t be jelly.” He punctuates this with a nip to a soft part of Kravitz’s jaw.

Kravitz laughs—he laughs a lot when he’s with Taako—“Maybe more romance covers should put Death on them, huh?”

“Fuck yeah, my man. Gimme freckles,” (a kiss to a space below Kravitz’s left eye) “and red eyes,” (Kravitz laughs again) “and those soft lips.” (Kravitz happily leans into Taako’s mouth again.) “Mm, yeah. That’s the stuff.”

“Can I have one with pink hair, soft ears, and pretty collarbones, then? More cute elves 2k4ever?”

Taako giggles, buries his face in Kravitz’s shoulder/neck and hums contentedly. “D’you wanna go to bed with me?” A brief silence, and Taako strokes Kravitz soothingly along his spine. “Your heartrate just went up, fella.”

“I—I kinda froze up there, didn’t I?”

Taako squeezes him. “Mm-hm, but it’s all good, y’know? Just, like, use your words and we’ll do whatever! I’m real easy, man.” Kravitz is laughing again, and Taako’s cheeks are darkening. He shrugs one shoulder prettily and grins, only a _bit_ sheepish. “You know it, stud.”

Kravitz disentangles their limbs and kisses Taako’s fingers. “Not tonight. Another night, if—if you’d still like, you don’t have to commit, I...”

Taako looks a smidge uncomfortable. “You’ve, uh, got a little Cockney in your voice. I can get it for you,” he offers, moistening his lips, before pulling back upon realizing that innuendo may not have been the best tack. Kravitz kisses his forehead, and Taako settles.

“I haven’t been touched this much since I was alive,” he explains, his lips still brushing against his date’s skin. He thinks his voice has gone natural again. “Actually, we blew past that milestone a while ago. This, right now? It’s really nice and also really overwhelming. I can’t handle...that much…all at once. Are you ok with that?”

Taako’s eyes are shining. “Well, duh, darlin’.” His face crumples with concern, and he cups Kravitz’s face with his hands. “Hey, listen a sec. Anytime you don’t want me to touch you, it doesn’t matter what I think of it, ok? You don’t gotta explain.” He waits for Kravitz to nod, bites his lip. “I’m glad you _did_ , though. Thanks for telling me what you’re thinking and stuff. It’s—I’m glad.”

This was followed by another interlude of warm kisses and happy sighs. Kravitz thought he might melt, and was rather pleased he managed not to. Well. Not _literally_.

 

~***~

 

They go slow. Taako isn’t used to it, checks in often: “Was that ok, is this too much?” Not always, but usually, the answers are “Yes!” to the first and “No!” to the second. At the beginning Taako angles for compliments a lot, craves affection and tries to hide it. He kind of sucks at asking for things outright, or opening up about anything, but he’s working on it. Kravitz is pretty sure he gets to hear stories and confessions that Taako hasn’t told other people. He hopes someday they’ll both feel secure enough that he can tell Taako how much he cherishes this.

“I love your flirting, you know?” Kravitz tells him one night, when Taako is straddled across his lap, encouragingly talking sweet/dirty and playing with his hair while Kravitz kisses his throat. “It makes me feel all warm inside.”  

Taako belly laughs and shivers happily when this motion shifts Kravitz’s fingertips beneath the hem of his jorts. “Good to know _parts_ of you are warm!” He lays his hands over Kravitz’s. “Keep ‘em right there, as long as you’d like. Feels nice, just like…” he falters. “Shit. What’s something cool, but comforting and exciting? Don’t say ice cream, that’s _cold_.”

“Freddie Mercury.” Taako snorts _very_ undaintily and tries to hide his dimples behind his hand, angling his head and raising his eyebrows in a fake-judgey pose. Kravitz plays innocent: “Mmm, not what you were looking for? How about you, then? You’re all those things.” Taako drops his postured hand so he can kiss Kravitz senseless instead. (And oh, he does, he does.)

 

~***~

 

And eventually, there’s a night when Kravitz has sent a string of emoji over the Stone of Farspeech (Skull-heart-sparkles-taco-peach-rainbow of hearts?) and received “my room, 2nite (heart w/arrow-peace-hearteyes face-sparkles-lipstick mark-champagne-crescent moon) ilu" back. So of course this means Taako walks into his room and finds his boyfriend twisting on the bed in quest for the most seductive pose known to man-, elf-, or reaper-kind. Spread his legs more? Or less? Is draping his wrist over his knee hot or awkward? Prop his head up or let his arm trail along the pillow?

“You tryina get me to paint you like one of my French bois, sweetheart?” Kravitz startles, stills, and grins easily. Taako is so clearly trying for casual, but his voice and face and body are unsteady with the effort of considerate restraint.

“Well,” Kravitz replies, his shyness rapidly vanishing, “I thought I’d invite you to make l-love to me.” He’d been going to say more, but Taako is by now sitting on the edge of the bed unlacing his floral combat boots, and he forgets what the words were.

Taako stretches like a cat and curls into a sort of loose fetal position facing Kravitz. He runs his hands over his boyfriend’s face with a calculating expression. “Fuck yeah, my man, that’s be radical. The sex thing, I mean.” He drags his thumb over Kravitz’s lower lip. Kravitz sighs happily and parts his lips, flicks his tongue over Taako’s thumb. Taako squeaks and giggles. “Do you know something you wanna do, honeybun?”

Kravitz tucks his face into Taako’s shoulder, throws an arm around his waist. “Will you top? And I’d like lots of kissing. I _think_ otherwise I’m good with any sort of boning, really.” He wiggles his hips against Taako on “boning,” and receives laughter and a finger tilting his chin up for a very lengthy, tonguey kiss. Taako shifts his lips to Kravitz’s cheekbone and then to the lobe of his ear, nipping lightly while Kravitz squirms happily and crinkles his nose.

“Yes. Yes yes yes,” Taako whispers, tracing along his spine. He fingers Kravitz’s collar. “Hey, can I take these off? Meaning your whole, like, clothes situation?” Kravitz smiles and _wants_ , and Taako squeaks as he finds his arms full of naked boyfriend. “Well,” he laughes, “well, that’s one way to do that.” His eyes are shining, and he’s just the faintest loveliest bit flustered. Kravitz basks. “Hunh, well, you’re gonna have to give me a hand, bronco. I ain’t got a problem using a spell slot for the occasion, but I reckon we might want it later. For, like, tentacles or something.” He means it as a joke—Kravitz can see it—but then they both feel how Kravitz’s body responds to the suggestion, and Taako blushes deeply. “Oh. _Noice._ ” He clears his throat, winks. “I’ll remember that for later, love. Another night?”

Kravitz nods enthusiastically. “Yes good cool great!” He covers his face with his hands and laughs helplessly. “How did I get so lucky?” Taako looks confused, so he extends his hand and caresses Taako’s face. His boyfriend leans into the attention, and Kravitz sits up more so he can help with the buttons on his shirt, slide the thigh-highs down his legs. Taako is so _soft_. Soft skin, soft hair. Wonderfully squishable. And his ears are like lamb’s-ear. Not the animal, although maybe the animal too? But yeah, like the plant with lovely soft leaves that used to grow outside Kravitz’s bedroom window when he was little.

Kravitz melts and welcomes Taako’s questing hands and lips across his body. Feels the gentle kisses over the short straight scars on his wrists, the longer ones on his chest, the tidy row of scars on his thigh. “What’s this tattoo about, darling? Oh your hip?”

“Mm. What’s it of? I uh, I haven’t looked at my body in a long time.”

Taako tilts his head slowly. “It’s a moth? A pretty badass moth.” His fingers trace a curly antenna.

Kravitz thinks. “Oh, I think it had something to do with persisting even when I get burned for wanting things.” The explanation comes lightly, easily. Taako spreads his fingers across the tattoo, his warmth radiating over Kravitz’s whole hip, and laces the fingers of his other hand with Kravitz’s own. He drinks in the affection, tries to memorize the tenderness in Taako’s face, in the weight of his hands, the casual arrangement of his legs, the fluff of his now-messy hair.

Taako shows Kravitz things about his body he’s forgotten. He goes over him methodically, starting with revisiting their recent (re)discovery of how much Kravitz adores to have his hair stroked. Cups Kravtiz’s face in his hands, covers him in kisses and notes the places that make him sigh the most deeply. Lightly on his neck—Kravitz doesn’t love being touched there—leaves a sweet hickey on his collarbone. Points out other small tattoos, freckle patterns, a mole on the back of his left upper arm. Reminds him how ticklish he is around his knees, whispers love into the tender crevices of his ankles, the dip of his hips. Watches him shiver and squirm at a warm exhalation just above his nipples. Traces his happy trail and, after a brief check-in (—“Would you like—?” —“So much my marrow aches.”), Taako gives Kravitz his tongue and mouth and a hot wave of joy.   

After a while, Taako pulls back for a breath, and Kravitz tugs on him, asks him softly to lie beside him. He lets their foreheads touch while he slips his hand between Taako’s legs, tries to drive his sweetheart’s heartrate up to match his own. Taako gasps and laughs, grips Kravitz’s shoulders to steady himself.

Eventually Taako has Kravitz positioned on his back while he settles between his thighs, wiggling his eyebrows and smirking cheerfully while he gets them both ready. He fucks Kravitz like some sort of cup of sex tea, all sweet and honest and healing.  Kravitz settles his hands on Taako’s thighs, watches him, fascinated by the lines of his body and how colorful he is, even without clothes. Taako pulls his pink hair out of his eyes with one long honeybrown glow-in-the-dark nail-polished hand, trembles and gasps and steadies himself, and Kravitz feels his own body twitch happily all over. Taako tries to laugh, doesn’t have the breath for it. Kravitz shifts one hand and rubs his lower back soothingly. Taako breathes and breathes and smiles. “I’m close, my guy,” he says, and Kravitz makes a soft, happy, sound. “Think I can get you there first?” Taako’s dimples deepen. “When will death come for me?” Kravitz is startled, can’t stop laughing, overwhelmed with affection—and there he goes, his toes curling. He is dimly aware of Taako coming apart above him, wishes he could watch, but isn’t really up to anything except lying back and feeling just now.

They clean up at some point. Kravitz makes Taako stay in bed while he slips home and comes back with a washcloth for Taako and tea for them both. His boyfriend laughs. “You went all the way to the Astral Plane for home comforts? Smooth, dawg. Real classy, love it.” Taako babbles when he’s shy, and by now Kravitz knows well that affection makes him shyer than anything, so he wraps his arms around his lovely shoulders and kisses his forehead.

“I loved that,” he tells Taako, out loud. I love you, he tells Taako, not out loud. He watches the curve of Taako’s neck as he tries to hide his face in his tea, moved and blushing. Kravitz sets both their emptied mugs on the nightstand and strokes Taako’s soft soft ears. “Can—can we spoon?”

Taako surges with excitement, grins so hard his cheeks must hurt. “Fuck _yeah_ , man. That’d be. Yeah. Please.” Kravitz squeezes him, resolves to offer cuddles a _lot_ more. “Can I be,” Taako asks tentatively, actually asking for what he needs for once, “can I be the little spoon?”

“Fuck yeah,” Kravitz tells him back. “Radical.” Taako sticks his tongue out at him, turns happily onto his side. They sigh in unison once they’re nestled together. Kravitz kisses the back of Taako’s neck and is rewarded with a small squeak.

“I don’t suppose you sleep at all?” Taako asks into the soft quiet.

“Not even a little. I, like, _chill_ sometimes, though.”

Taako reaches back and gives Kravitz’s leg a gentle squeeze/pat through the leggings he’d conjured up to buffer the chill of his body for the boyf. “Imma go ahead and meditate, if that’s cool with you?”

“Mm-hm. ‘Course. Rest well, sugarplum,” he says, darting the tip of his tongue into the join between Taako’s earlobe and skull.

Taako snorts, twists a bit to let Kravitz see his smile and trail two fingers along his jaw. “Good night, ma petit mort.”

Kravitz knows that tomorrow, he’s going to chase a bounty for the Raven Queen and give Julia his opinion on a piece of stone over hot chocolate and gossip. For now, though, he allows himself to shut the Astral Plane out of his mind. He feels his skin, his lungs, his heart. How the pieces fit together with each other, and with Taako’s body. He marvels how easy and safe he feels with the quiet person in his arms. The younger Kravitz who craved this kind of touch and feared self-immolation with every other waking breath is long gone, long since grown into a more unwieldly, more thorny bush of a person—although, he supposes now, he’s got more blooms now as well. So he can make his body anything he pleases now? Looks like he’s welcome to curl up under Taako’s quilt whatever he chooses. So there can’t be any harm in letting himself wear this body, his oldest body. If Taako can see his own body in the mirror every morning and still think Kravitz’s is worth love, can make Kravitz feel glad to have it, then that’s that. Time to give it another chance. Ok, he says to Taako, in his heart, ok, let’s do this thing. I’m scared and fucked up, and I think you probably are too, but that’s not a problem. Death doesn’t fill me up with peace from my braids to my toes, but you do. Your bed and arms and eyes and smile and voice and heart do. I’ll go wherever holding your hand takes us.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of "ma petit(e) mort" comes from [ this wonderful post by catsi](http://catsi.tumblr.com/post/154003790812/taako-110-calls-kravitz-ma-petite-mort-as-a%20I%20chose). Ended up going for the masculine adjective form because I felt like it, but either works for slightly different reasons and I'm gonna shut up about French now!
> 
> The joke about loving the concept of sea monsters is a reference to a thing John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats [said one time](https://twitter.com/mountain_goats/status/253539175318560768). I will laugh over it for my entire life, pls put it on my grave.
> 
> [Plaguefuckers thought of](http://plaguefuckers.tumblr.com/post/153374946500/a-couple-gentle-taz-headcanons-merle-knits-he) the lamb's-ear thing (and many other beautiful headcanons) and made my heart sing, because there are some in the garden of the house I grew up in and I love them so much.
> 
> And you can visit me on tumblr [here](https://cartograffiti.tumblr.com/)!


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